February 3, 1917 - Sister Dora Plans Trip for Sister Susan Nuptials

 

This photo was apparently taken during the time that Margaret Lindsey came with her mother Dora to visit her maternal grandparents Will and Ella Jane (Stevens) Sherwood.  Behind them is "Spring Brook Farm" where Will and Ella lived and where George was born and raised.  Margaret seems a little small for 2.5 years old if this was the March 2018 visit.  This may have been taken at an earlier visit.  I would be happy to be enlightened by any relatives who might know for sure.  Or I could be totally barking up an entirely wrong tree.  I do know that the people on the ends are Will and Ella Jane Sherwood, George's parents.

Feb 3^rd 1918

 

Dear Daddy: - A note to Herman and small books to the “vining folks” [referencing the soon to be married sister Susan Sherwood and Herman Weber] last week pretty nearly wore out my pen so I just left you over till today.  I have to do all my scribbling when busy-body is sleeping.  And I find I’m getting to be a lazy writer. Had a fine picture of George in last nights mail sure do enjoy it. Have written him today.  You and mother would have a lovely “honeymoon” while the “children” are away on theirs.  It is a shame to intrude  but I don’t see how I’m ever going to get there and get my visit over and get away by Mar 12, so I suspect you will find a very matronly daughter and a very busy grand-daughter at least busily engaged in destroying any “honeymoon” dreams you may have.  I’ll defy you to do any “spooning” Margaret doesn’t catch you at.  It can’t be done.  And when she catches you she will tell you very sternly that she (and none other) is your “girlie." We have had little snow and very little real winter weather.  I wonder what a Wisconsin March will hand us.

            Guy is awfully anxious to come East while I’m there but we scarcely dare hope that he can get off.  Doesn’t look so very promising now at least. He threatened last night not to let us go so far away but I know he was not in earnest.  Margaret just now woke and is half awake in my arms.  She may get back to sleep. 

            How she will love you all!  Let’s not plan much work while I’m there (get the “kids” properly married and then visit).  I may not write much the next three weeks.  I have so much to do.

                                    Love to all,
                                                Dora

The sense of humor of this family is fairly well demonstrated as this photo of Ella Jane with her, granddaughter  Margaret Lindsey (I believe) and another unidentified child.  I do believe that that is Ella Jane's handwriting under the picture of herself.

Margaret Lindsey a little older

October 10, 1917 - Letter to George from His Dear Ones At Home

George Sherwood's Family

Susan, Will, George and Ella Jane

 

Lower pasture at Spring Brook Farm where George and Susan were both born and raised.

 



Spring Brook Farm

October 7, 1917

Dearest Little Soldier Brother,

            Can you guess who was at Church today?  Give you three guesses before you look at the answer.  He also is a soldier. Have you guessed?  Well, it really was A. E. Frederick in his soldier uniform.  And every time I looked at him I kept thinking about you, and how fine it would be if you could “come marching home” for a few days too.  After church we all stood around for about half an hour listening to him talk about how they build trenches, about bayonet drill, sleeping in the trenches one night and so forth and so forth.  They will have to stay in the trenches for three days and nights next time.  On the night which they have already spent there it rained quite hard which increased their comfort considerably, of course. 

            Mr. Fredericks troubles are not all when he is soldiering though for the car didn’t work right so that they did not get there much ahead of me and I was very late indeed, as I got started late and then could not hurry much as I had quite a load of things for Aunt Nellie and Ette can’t go any too fast as you well know. 

            Of course everybody was asking about you and where you were now.  Mr. Frederick received a card from you from Jefferson Barracks but was not certain that it was from you at first because you had not signed it and he did not know where you were.  Of course when he got home and Mrs. Fredericks told him of you, then he was sure, though he had thought so before.  Vincent also asked for your new address but as he had nothing to write it on he may forget it before getting around to write. 

            Forgot to tell you last night how sorry I was about your disappointment in regards to the officer and the fine girl which you might have met if you had been able to go to Rockford.  How I wish that there might be many instead of so few of the right kind of girls for you soldier boys to meet.  Oh, if some of those who are more thoughtless than really bad could realize that a soldier is a man and not a plaything, maybe they might also be made to realize what their good, clean, straight, friendship might mean to them and how they might help instead of hindering them to be clean fine men.

            We must all get up early in the morning as late last night we got word that the car of bran was on hand and must be emptied by Monday night.

            Herman stopped here tonight.  He went down to his brother George’s and brought him and their father up to Julius Webers to see them and to see the barn and its equipment.  He says though that his father can not stand riding in the car.  He had hoped to be able to take him to Sparta to see Philip some time this fall, but of course will not be able to now as his father could not stand it. 

            Grandma Atwater wanted to hear the phonograph so we have been listening to that the latter part of the evening.  We played your favorite, “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “An Afternoon in June” and all or nearly all of our favorite ones.  How I wish that you had been here to hear.  It has been so lonesome since you have started for Texas. 

            Goodnight sweetheart.  So much, much love and many prayers for our Boy.  Mispah.               

Your lovingest little sister;

Susan

October 8, 1917 – 11:15 A.M.

Dear Heart,

Just a line to tell you how much we love you but there is so much to do that I mustn’t stop to write much  but as soon as the threshing is done I will try to do better about writing.  Oh, so much love and so many prayers for our Boy.  Love and love and love.

                                                                                    Susan
 

[Change of handwriting to his mother, Ella Jane’s] P.S.  Dear, dear Laddie Boy,

Mother is just baking cookies and how I do wish my boy was to have some.  But sister will have to eat your share.  She says she is eating one for you now.  Do you taste it?  Eat it quick for the threshers will finish them tomorrow. Sister says [The rest is illegible]  

November.  Daddy says to write ditto under this about Mr. Frederick as he is here again.

It is apparent that this letter did not get mailed in a timely fashion since the last sentence shows that it is still in Wisconsin in November.  But I thought it was better to put it near the other letters that George had written and to which Susan refers.

120 years ago today a little boy and second child to Will and Ella Jane Sherwood entered the world. George Stevens Sherwood, like all people left his mark for better or worse in the lives of his peers, his children and the generations to follow.  Twenty one years from his birth he would chronicle his travels and thoughts as he enlisted in the army 108th Engineers, survived boot camp, boarded a ship to "Somewhere in France" and became a part of the American Expeditionary Forces.  His mother and sister saved his letters written to his "Dear Ones at Home" as so many letters began.  One hundred years later we are the beneficiaries of their safekeeping and are given real-time insights into the life of one young man who was a part of the War to End All Wars.  

George's parents, William Richard Sherwood and Ella Jane Richardson Atwater Sherwood met several years after Ella's first husband, Elmer Atwater died in a logging accident at Black River Falls, WI.  The distraught young widow and her infant daughter, Dora, lived with her in-laws, William and Caroline Atwater until she could again face life and hope again for a brighter future.  Dora was about  six years of age when Will and Ella married in March of 1887.  Their first child together was Susan, born in 1894, and two years George was born on December 3, 1896; 120 years ago today.

 

There is no family lore about how Will and Ella Jane met that has been chronicled.  Will's parents had been a pioneering family to this area of Wisconsin after moving to the US from England.  Ella Jane's parent, David and Jane Stevens had both been born in Vermont and  could follow several family lines back through Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts to the pilgrims on the Mayflower.  David Stevens and his parents, Samuel P Stevens and Lydia Eastman Stevens had already moved to Wisconsin to seek their fortune because the rich Wisconsin and Minnesota plains and  rolling hills were a vast improvement over the rocky farmland of Vermont.  In David and Rosina Jane's case of young love, absence did not make the heart to wander.  David returned to Vermont to  marry his bride and took her back to Wisconsin with  him. David and Jane had spent some time in the Trempealeau area of Wisconsin and lived for a long time in Elgin, MN. 

 

The only clue to how Will and Ella Jane met is that in the 1895 Minnesota census of Elgin we see that William Sherwood was apparently working for and residing with David and Jane Stevens.

 

I don't have any idea if the two families had previous friends or acquaintances in common.  Perhaps Will just "fell" into a situation where he traveled to Minnesota and needed a job and learned that the Stevens family needed a worker.  He had a half a dozen siblings and was maybe looking to gain some independence from his family as well.  Whatever the cause, both of them ended up in Elgin, MN in 1885 and by 1887 were married.

George's letters during 1917 to 1919 show the youth and growing maturity of this boy from a region well chronicled by Gustav Telschow's book Those Dear Hills of Home.  It is an interesting read for those interested in the history of this area of Wisconsin. Elroy, the geographic center of Telschow's book is only six and a half miles from Spring Brook Farm.     

 

By the time little George Stevens Sherwood came on the scene, Will and Ella Jane Sherwood owned the fairly prosperous dairy farm in western Wisconsin that had belonged to his family since 1868. 

The farm was known as Spring Brook Farm. The original farmhouse where George and Susan had both been born was a large Italianate style building of two stories, a summer kitchen off to one side and a large cellar underneath.  In this photo you can just barely see both George and  Susan sitting in the yard.

George and Susan were good friends growing up as reflected in their letters to each other before and throughout the war.  He called her his little big sister since she was older but smaller.

Around 1910, the large wrap-around porch and an addition of rooms on the west end of the house had been added to both floors so that Stevens grandparents could move in with Will and Ella Jane as their health declined.  The farm was about 110 acres of farmland, cow barn, grainery and milk-house.  The children had lots of chores and also  lots of freedom to explore and grow.  Susan was born and died in the same home having lived there all of her 93 years.

 

Family was always very important to George and his extended relatives.  After Will and Ella Jane were married they rented the Spring Brook Farm from his parents and they lived there until Richard Sherwood, Will's father, passed away. Later on the Stevens parents (David and Jane) would live with Will and Ella Jane.  When Susan married, she and her husband Herman continued to live at Spring Brook Farm along with her parents, Will and Ella Jane.  The addition made the home a bit like a larger and smaller  duplex, with French doors between the living areas and separate staircases.  When George would write his letters to his Dear Ones at Home, these often included three generations of family.

 

Every soldier at war who can has personal family and friends that support and strengthen them for the stresses of the battle.  And every soldier's family knows the anxiety and fear for their loved one in harms way so far from home. George's letters in the next two years will bring to life his experiences exactly a century ago.   

 

As these posts begin I will occasionally post letters of or about George or other general information about him.  When he actually gets to the point of enlisting, almost all information will be directly provided by George himself.  He is a good writer and I think you will enjoy his perspective on his endeavors and adventures.